[LXM] Lily Ex Machina Chapter 109 + What’s Next

It’s been a year since I started writing LXM. I can say, I’m amazed by how far it’s come since then. This is the longest I’ve ever stuck with a writing project, and it’s come to be such a big part of my life that I’m now actually paying out of my own pocket to buy stuff like art and web hosting. A year ago, I would never have expected to keep up my commitment for this long; I was fully expecting to give up within a month. And yet, here we are, one year later, at 109 chapters, with an average of 1,300 words per chapter. That’s more than 100,000 words, and I’m honestly can’t believe the extent of what I’ve accomplished when I consider that I’ve actually written this much for what essentially started as a whim.

The people I have to thank for this, of course, are all of you, my readers. Without seeing the page views tick upward, I might not have had the motivation to keep going for as long as I had; many times, when I considered stopping because of my IRL commitments taking up increasing amounts of my time, I kept on going because I knew that there would at least be a few people who wanted to know what was going to happen, who wanted to read the continuation of the story. If not for all of you, I might have given up long ago. So thank you, all my readers, both those that have been with me since the start, and those that joined me later.

Now, I suppose convention dictates that I write down the lessons I’ve learned, or the tricks I’ve developed, at this stage of this post. But I’m not going to do that. Not yet. Because Lily Ex Machina hasn’t ended yet.

However, as of this chapter, we are entering into the final arc. LXM hasn’t ended yet. But it will end soon. So what I’m going to address here is, what’s next? What comes after?

Good news is, I do have something planned. A sequel, of sorts, taking place in the same universe as LXM. It won’t follow Lily and her family, but they might (and probably will) appear in some capacity. It will be a new tale, with new characters, and a different approach to the writing. I’m honestly pretty excited for it, and can’t wait to start releasing it.

Bad news is, the sequel will not follow Lily and her family. Lily Ex Machina is Lily’s story, and Lily’s story ends with this final arc. Whether I will release future side stories for LXM concurrently with the new series is something I haven’t decided upon. With college kicking into gear, I’m probably going to be even more strapped for time in the future. With this in mind, it’s not really feasible to write and release sidestories for LXM. I do have a couple of ideas for stories I want to write, but the problem is that I might not have the time to write them. I’m not going to say that there’s absolutely no way, but for the moment, it’s unlikely.

Well then, thank you once again for continuing to read this work. We’re almost to the end, so stick with me and let’s keep moving onward to the conclusion of this narrative. As always, if you wish to support me and what I do, please consider supporting me on Patreon, and I hope that I’ll be able to continue meeting your expectations.

((P.S.: Reminder that there will be no release on Tuesdays for the next two weeks, so once a week rather than biweekly. Blame exams ; w ; ))